Michele Bachmann Says Party Will Unify Behind Nominee

AFP/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Former presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said she believes the Republican Party will unify behind the eventual nominee, and does not believe they will be hampered by the ongoing primary fight.

“I think the quicker that the Republicans can unify behind our candidate and make Barack Obama and his failed policies the focus of this election, the better off we all will be, but the people need to decide,” Bachmann told George Stephanopoulos on “This Week.”

Bachmann has not endorsed a candidate, and did not say whether Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich should end their challenge to front-runner Mitt Romney.

“Whoever the people choose, I will back that candidate, because I want mine not to be a divisive voice,” Bachmann said. “I want to help unify the party and bring together the Tea Party element, the evangelical, and the establishment, and then reach out to independents and disaffected Democrats.”

When asked if Santorum’s continued challenge to Romney was in fact helping Obama, Bachmann referenced the highly-contested 2008 race between Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama, which lasted until June.

“We will unify. There’s no question,” Bachmann said. “Here it is, March, and we will unify, and I think long before the Democrats did in 2008.”

Bachmann said she was not concerned about Romney adviser Eric Ferhnstrom’s comment last week comparing the Romney campaign to an Etch A Sketch that will be reset for the general election, saying, “these kind of things are the minors that become majors, these statements.”

Bachmann said that arguments over the president’s health care law, which is being challenged in the Supreme Court this week, will instead be the main focus of the general election.

“The real issue that most Americans are concerned about is the constitutionality of the government forcing Americans to pay for a very expensive insurance policy,” Bachmann said. “The people do not like this bill at all. They do not like the federal government forcing them to spend their money in a way that they don’t want to spend it.”

Bachmann said President Obama “can’t even go before the public and defend” his signature legislation, citing that he did not “make a peep” on the two-year anniversary of the bill last week.

Bachmann added that she believes her own run for the nomination, where she emphasized her opposition to the health care law, helped shape the current GOP field’s position.

“Now our nominees, all four of them or all four candidates, have just one answer, and that’s full-scale repeal,” Bachmann said. “That’s 180 degrees different from President Obama, who fully stands behind this very unpopular bill. Whoever our nominee is, they will repeal Obamacare.”